Latest Gear Live Videos

Fortune has gone all tech on us this week, compiling a list of who they think are the fifty smartest people in tech. We found it interesting because most lists focus on the richest CEOs, or straight up performance on the job rather than things like intelligence, and the vision and impact they have on the tech world. The way they did it was to break the list down into ten categories (smartest CEO, smartest founder, etc.) and then list five names in each, listing a top choice for each category in the process. Here’s a peek at what they came up with:

Advertisement

The clip above was shown at the Wharton Business Technology Conference. It’s called 2019, and it’s Microsoft‘s vision for what the year 2019 will look like as it pertains to technology and how it will be completely integrated into our lifestyle. While 2019 looks like a far away number, this is just 10 years away, people. Do we think things will look like this by then? No, not so much…but we will be well on our way. Check out the two-minute version above, and if it strikes your fancy, click on through to watch the five-minute version. It makes me cry with glee.

Our pal Robert Scoble was able to get an early look at the new Microsoft Songsmith software, and we were impressed enough that we wanted to give you guys a look at the video. Songsmith allows you to make music, that you sing to, by generating musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice. You sing into your mic, and the software creates the backing music for you to make you sound good. It’s not just for novices either, as you can play instruments into Somgsmith for capturing, and it includes an intelligent scratchpad to allow it to work with new melodies. Kind of hard to explain, so really, check out the video. You can download a free trial at the Songsmith page as well.

We knew that Microsoft Research had something pretty amazing up its sleeve after talking to a few people at the company, in addition to having dinner with Robert Scoble, who told us that what he saw brought him to tears. As it turns out, it is the WorldWide Telescope that had people in awe. After watching Roy Gould introduce the software in the above video during TED, we have to say, we agree. Think of the WorldWide Telescope as the equivalent to the full-featured version of Google Earth - except that the WorldWide Telescope software is free, and instead of looking at the earth in extreme detail, you get to peruse the cosmos instead. I mean, watch the video to see how truly mind-blowing this technology really is. Look for it to be available for download this Spring for the Windows platform. No word on how beefy a machine you will need to run it as smoothly as it worked in the demo - but here’s hoping that everyone who downloads the WorldWide Telescope will be able to enjoy the same experience seen here.